Ever After
by singsongsung
Summary: Fourteen times Serena van der Woodsen gets married. And one time she doesn't.
1. Blair

**A/N:** The summary explains the premise of this fic. The first two or three chapters will be shorter and lighter, as they take place fairly early in S's life; the later ones will be heavier and perhaps a bit darker. The 'titles' of various chapters come from traditional and non-traditional wedding vows. Enjoy; please review.

**Ever After**

.one.

_I ask you to share this world with me, together for all the days to come_

The first time she gets married, she is five years old.

She's also the groom.

(Blair has to be the bride, _so_.)

She wears one of Harold Waldorf's old Armani suit jackets; it hit her at her knees and she has to roll the sleeves way, way up. Dorota tucks a bunch of bobby pins into Serena's long hair, pinning it all up in a bun at the nape of her neck.

Blair's in a pretty, lacy white dress. She gets Dorota to curl her brown hair for her, and set a tiara and veil into it. She even has long, white, silky gloves.

When Dorota leaves them alone to play, they sneak into Blair's parents' room and raid Eleanor's cosmetics. Serena helps Blair do her makeup, deep red lipstick and mascara that accidentally gets smeared under Blair's brown eyes when she blinks, but Serena spits on a tissue and manages to smudge most of that away.

"Beautiful," she declares grandly, spinning Blair around so that she can look in the mirror.

Serena examines there reflections and giggles a little at the way they look like complete opposites right now, her hair up and Blair's down, her way-too-big black jacket an obvious contrast to B's delicate white dress that fits her perfectly.

"'Kay, let's get married," she says, still giggling.

Blair nods solemnly. "This is important practice, S."

"But you won't get married for a long time. You have to be old. Like, twenty at least."

"It's never to early."

Serena narrows her eyes, plants her hands on her hips. "That's what your mom says about eye cream."

Blair stamps her foot. "_S_. You're my fiancé. You're supposed to do what makes me happy."

"It's only _pretend_."

"No, it's practice, for real."

"Who're you going to marry for real?"

Blair pats at her hair carefully. "Nate."

And Serena blinks, surprised. "Nate? Our Nate?"

Blair smiles at her, laughs a little. "What other Nate could I marry?"

She bites her bare lips, looks at Blair's bright red ones. "How come...how come you get Nate?" _He's mine, too. At least half mine_.

"Because. He's perfect."

"But why – "

"Don't worry. You'll marry someone, too," Blair promises. "We just haven't met him yet."

"But..."

Swallowing hard, Blair demands, "Do _you_ want to marry Nate?"

Serena looks at her, at her clean white dress and her hopeful brown eyes, and thinks that yes, Blair is perfect. Blair's always been perfect the way Serena has never been, and if Nate is perfect too, if perfect is what they both want, then they should be perfect together.

"Marry Nate?" She licks her lips. _Yes. He's my other best friend. Maybe. I love him. It's too early to tell. I shouldn't. _She breathes out, does not say _no_, but manages, "Well, you want to marry him."

Blair smiles again, reaches for Serena's hand and holds on tight. "Yeah, so help me practice!"

They flicks the switches on fake candles in Blair's sitting room, arranging them on the mantle and the end tables, and then turn off the overhead light.

"Ambiance," Blair says.

"Ambi – what? You're not really going to get married in the dark."

"It's not dark, there are _candles_."

"Yeah, but you get married outside. In the sunshine."

"This is classier."

Serena squints, lips quirking up into half a smile as she stands right in front of Blair. "Did you make up that word?"

Reaching for Serena's other hand, Blair smiles a little too, confides: "Maybe."

They grip each other's fingers tightly, candlelight making their shadows flicker against the walls and on the floor.

"Do I have to pretend to be Nate?"

Blair laughs, her teeth showing as she grins. "No, you can be you."

"Okay. So...what do I say?"

They stumble through a messy version of traditional wedding vows; starting with Blair: "I take you to be my husband – "

"Hey!"

"Okay, _wife_, from this day to..."

"Infinity?"

"Okay, infinity."

Serena smiles and nods. "I take you, too."

"I take you for rich or for poor."

"And for good or bad."

"Better or worse," Blair insists, correcting her.

"Is that it?" Serena whispers, not wanting to interrupt the formalities.

"No, there's, um...I take you when you're sick, and when you're better."

Remembering a cousin's wedding she attended last year, Serena adds, "To hold!" She swings her hands and Blair's hands, still linked, to prove her point.

"To hold," Blair agrees, squeezing her fingers back. Her voice is somber and sweet all at once, a promise. Lastly, she intones, "Until death do us part."

"Til death do us part," Serena repeats.

They're silent for a moment, standing about a foot apart, still holding each other's hands.

Serena scrunches up her nose, breaks the silence with: "Do we _kiss_?"

Blair shrugs, looking confused for the first time during their play-date. "They do at real weddings."

"But this is...just pretend."

"_Practice_," Blair corrects her huffily.

"Well, do we kiss or not?" Serena demands, huffy in return.

Blair shifts her weight from foot to foot. "You're only supposed to kiss boys."

"Not true. You kiss the people you love."

Head tilted to one side, Blair's brown eyes skim over Serena's face. "And do you love me?"

She shrugs; the answer seems obvious. "You're my best friend in the world. Like my sister."

One of Blair's eyebrows arcs upward. "I _am_ your sister."

Serena giggles. "Yes. Sorry."

And all of a sudden the haughty expression is gone, and Blair is staring at the floor, possibly right at Serena's bare feet. "I've never kissed anybody before," she says very quietly. "On the lips."

Serena licks her lips, inches a little closer to Blair. "Me neither."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"We're not _old_ enough to kiss people."

With a roll of her eyes, Serena says, "We could try. Just for a second. Married people do it all the time."

Blair looks at her very seriously, and then all of a sudden she's leaning in and brushing her puckered lips against Serena's. It lasts barely a second and is so light Serena hardly feels it, but it's enough for some of Blair's lipstick to transfer onto Serena's lips.

She sighs, doesn't bother to wipe it away. "Can we watch _Cinderella_ now?"

***

It's her longest-lasting marriage, this five-year-old pretend – _practice –_ one with Blair on a Sunday afternoon in the late fall, surrounded by the flickering light of fake candles.

Those promises linger between them for their lifetimes, keep them tied to each other through the good and the bad and the ugly, through their biggest fights and their greatest moments, through leaving and coming back and staying. Their words define them: _what is you is me. _They're bound together – through every other marriages and friendships, through any and every curve-ball life throws at either of them; til death do them part.

They keep their vows forever.


	2. Chuck

**A/N:** Thank you for your feedback! This chapter is also fairly short, as S is still young. Reviews are love.

**.two.**

_you are my once-in-a-lifetime_

"No."

"But _S_ – "

"No!" She crosses her arms. "I am _not_ marrying him. Forget it."

"Serena, _please_..."

"_You_ marry him, Blair."

"It's just a _game_, S."

Serena and Blair whirl around at the same time to glare.

"It is _not_!" Blair insists indignantly, but Serena's voice is louder as she snaps, "Stay _out_ of it, Chuck!"

Blair turns to glare at Serena instead. "You're ruining it!"

Her eyes are stinging. "Well, it's a stupid game."

"See." Chuck is sitting on the sofa with Nate, and he doesn't exactly _exclaim_, but his voice is full of _I told you so_. "It _is_ a game." He shoots Blair a triumphant look; beside him, Nate sighs and rubs at his hair.

"Let's go swimming," Serena suggests, eyes focused on Nate's face, trying to redirect the conversation. She gives him her best persuasive smile and he rewards her for it with a brilliant grin that makes her feel all _tingly_ – that is, until Blair latches onto her elbow.

"With all the _chlorine_?" She looks aghast. "Your hair will turn blue."

Nate laughs. "Will not."

Blair shakes her head. "I'm already in my dress, Serena!"

"Well _I'm not marrying Chuck_," she says, her voice low and more fierce than Blair has probably ever heard it before.

"He's just a stand-in! For your real-future-husband!"

Chuck tugs at his bow tie, frowning a little.

"You don't need to _practice_ getting married! You and Nate can just do the real deal some day!"

Blair's eyes flash. "But we made up this game! Together! You liked it until now."

"_You_ made it up!"

"Stop _yelling_ at each other." Nate interjects, getting to his feet and stepping toward them. "Let's play Blair's game, then we'll go swim, like you wanted." He throws Serena another grin.

Blair smiles, takes a step closer to Nate. "Yes, we can do both. This first. Get dressed, _please_." She looks at Serena, brown eyes wide, both pleading with and ordering her.

"No! I _hate_ this game. I hate it. I hate weddings."

She knows about weddings, now, and they're not at all like Blair has always believed (and what Blair believes, Serena tends to believe by default). Weddings mean people she doesn't know hovering through her house, and her mother speaking rapid Italian on the phone with some planner or another and waving Serena and her _excellent work! _comment on her science paper away without even a glance or a smile; it means that her mother gets new jewelry and Serena gets new teddy bears and dresses, and apparently, a new daddy.

But she likes the teddy bears she's had forever and she doesn't want lacy dresses and she still misses her old daddy.

There is silence in the room now, Chuck still fiddling with his bow tie, Nate and Blair facing Serena and looking her with near-identical expressions of hesitant understanding on their faces. No one moves.

"Just this one game," Nate finally says softly. "It'll be fun. Chuck'll be an _awesome_ husband." He kicks at Chuck's foot, prompts, "Right?"

Chuck glances up. "I don't want to play this game anymore than Serena does."

Serena's eyes fly to him; she's surprised and _almost_ grateful. "Okay, so we won't play. We can do something else," she suggests.

Chuck looks surprised, but it's Nate and Blair who both speak, who say, "No!" insistently at the exact same time. Blair throws Nate an approving smile before she continues, on her own, "We're supposed to be _together_."

That's something Serena can't deny. They're supposed to be together. Ever since she and Blair met Chuck and Nate, a kind of symmetry she doesn't have the vocabulary to explain has settled over them, any easiness; it's just _right_. No matter their groupings, or the ways they pair off, they work, but they work best of all as a foursome – together.

She looks at Chuck, who gives her a half-hearted shrug. She looks at Nate, who smiles encouragingly. She looks at Blair, who's looking right back at her with an echo of Serena's expression, their face mirroring each other's.

Serena taps her foot against the floor. "_One game_," she says very firmly.

"Cool!" Nate enthuses brightly, still playing peacemaker, and it makes both Serena and Blair giggle while Chuck snickers a little.

"Here, Nate." Blair holds out her hand and he takes it as Blair turns around, sets blazing brown eyes on Chuck. She doesn't stop looking at him until, finally, he sighs, gets to his feet, and extends his hand to Serena.

Begrudgingly, she takes it.

"I have rings!" Blair declares, hurrying across the room and digging in her purse. (Serena doesn't really understand _why_ Blair has a purse, because they're annoying to carry around and, well, they're _seven_. It's not like there's anything in the world that Blair _needs_ a purse for.)

"Rings?" Serena drops Chuck's hand. "Doesn't that make it, like...official?"

Nate's blue eyes go wide. "_Official?_"

"I did not sign up for official," Chuck contributes after a beat.

"It's still just _practice_," Blair insists. She drops golden rings with a tiny diamonds into Nate's and Chuck's hands; to Serena, she hands a gold band, and keeps an identical one for herself. "Come on," she says when she sees Serena's dubious expression. "You _just said_ you would, S."

Grumbling, Serena takes her place, standing across from Chuck. "When we get married for real, we are not having a double wedding," she tells Blair. "Actually, I'm not getting married at all."

Blair's mouth falls open. "But – "

Chuck tugs at his bow tie again. "Can we get this over with?"

They have pink index cards, all of them, lines written out like a script in Blair's neat penmanship. Nate folds his into a paper plane and then has to smooth it out again to read from it. They all read dutifully, though Serena and Nate actually put some effort into it. Chuck glowers for a while, and in return Serena holds his hand so loosely that they are barely touching. The girls slip rings onto the boys' fingers, and the boys return the gesture.

"Okay, done," Serena says while Blair is still admiring the ring on her finger. She tugs her hand away and crosses her arms.

"We have to kiss," Chuck reminds her, and he's really smiling for the first time – though on closer inspection, Serena realizes it's more like leering than smiling.

She glares; hates that this game/practice/whatever is all about people telling her what to do. "No. We don't."

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Nate press a chaste kiss to Blair's cheek, and without meaning to, she scoffs a little at the same time Chuck does.

He offers her a grin, tilts his head toward Blair and Nate. "Chickens."

Serena blows out her breath. "_Fine._"

She doesn't even bother trying to persuade him into a cheek-kiss first, because he's right, that's for chickens. She simply leans a little closer, puckers her lips the slightest bit, and after one last dubious look into his brown eyes, she closes her blue ones.

The kiss isn't so bad. In fact, it's actually better than the one she shared with Iz at Blair's last slumber party. Honestly, it's pretty _nice_, so she lets it last for a minute, lets his mouth move and open against hers.

And then his tongue, Chuck's _tongue_, touches hers.

She rears back, wipes the back of her hand over her mouth, cries, "_Ew!_ What are you _doing_?"

For a split second, hurt flashes across his face, and Serena pretends not to notice for both of their sakes.

"That's _how_ you kiss. For real."

"This _isn't_ real," she snaps back. "It's _pretend_."

(For once, Blair does not interject to remind them that it's _practice_.)

"_Fine._" Chuck pulls of his gold ring, throws it at the floor at her feet. "We're done, then."  
And to everyone's surprise – even her own – Serena looks down at the ring and bursts into tears. Not the quiet, elegant, blissful kind of way you're supposed to cry at weddings, but loud, noisy, unstoppable sobs.

Weddings aren't happily ever after. She knows that.

It hurts anyway.

Chuck's eyes go wide and panicked, and Nate looks absolutely stricken as he stares at her. Blair, however, focuses her gaze on Chuck's until he feels the pressure of it and finally turns to look at her.

"_Chuck_," she hisses. She looks down at the ring pointedly, then back up at his face, her glare hot and hard.

He scowls back at Blair, Serena sees that much through her haze of tears, and she wants to tell them it doesn't matter, but she just keeps crying instead.

"_Dude_," Nate says anxiously, his eyes darting over Serena's face.

"Shut up," Chuck grumbles at them. He scoops the ring up off the floor, but he doesn't put it back on. Instead, he takes Serena's hand and carefully slips his ring onto the same finger where she's wearing hers. "There," he says softly, clearly something that Nate and Blair are not meant to hear. "There, you keep both, okay?"

She blinks at him tearfully, sucks in a breath. "Yeah?"

He nods. "Yeah, I want you to keep both." There's a pause, and then he prompts, "Okay?" _Are you okay? Is this okay?  
_

There's another pause, a beat as Serena inspects her hand.

And then kisses him again, shortly and sweetly, and it still feels kind of nice. "Okay," she agrees; _for better or worse_.


	3. Aaron

**A/N:** Thank you for your feedback!

**.three.**

_with this ring, I thee wed_

When Lily tells her children that they are going to be spending all of the summer at Camp Suisse, Serena brags about her adventure to her friends at school, then goes home and curls up in bed and cries for almost a whole hour.

Once she gets to camp, though, it's not so bad. The grounds are so pretty and the sun's always shining and she meets people and makes friends and gets to play all day. She likes it there.

She likes Aaron Rose.

His hair's all _floppy_, falling in his eyes all the time. He takes cool pictures with his underwater camera. Once, he even takes a cool picture of Serena. She doesn't know if he _lets_ her beat him at soccer or if she _actually_ beats him at soccer, but either way, she likes it.

Around him, she twirls her blonde hair and giggles a little more than she normally does. She likes to make his face light up, make him grin back at her.

***

One night, on a dare from Virginia St. Clair, Serena sneaks out of her upper bunk bed and out of her cabin, all the way to the boys' cabins. She taps on the window of Aaron's, very lightly.

He meets her outside, on the small deck. She's got a splinter in one of her bare feet, so she rests most of her weight on her other side.

"Hi, Serena."

She wavers, a little off-balance, and hugs herself. It's a little cold, out here in the night air in only her nightie.

"Hi, Aaron."

His hair is sticking up in tufts all over the place and it makes her smile. He yawns. "It's late."

Serena shrugs carelessly, hopes that it makes her look cool and dangerous. "Is it?"

He smiles back at her, points upward at the stars that are scattered across the sky. "Yup. Dark. Past midnight, probably."

"Right." She bites her lip. "Are you tired? Do you want me to leave?"

He scuffs his foot, shrugs a bit. "No."

She grins, big and bright. "I wanted to tell you something."

"Okay."

"I – " She gasps; puts too much weight on her foot with the splinter and ends up toppling over, blinking back tears. "Ow," she whispers.

Aaron crouches down next to her. "There's wood in your foot."

She nods.

He sits, lifts her foot by the ankle and inspects it. She squeezes her eyes shut and holds her breath.

"There," he announces quietly, and when she opens her eyes cautiously, she sees that he is holding the sliver of wood triumphantly and smiling at her.

"Aaron, I like you," she blurts out, nothing but a murmur in the late-night air, still young enough and trusting enough to put her heart in his hands and believe it will be safe there.

He is still touching her foot, fingers resting comfortably against her ankle. "I like you, too, Serena."

She grins, bright as the biggest star in the sky. "Really?"

"Really."

Glancing down, she bites her lip shyly. "Okay. Um. I should probably go."

"Or you could stay," he suggests, looking a little nervous. "For a minute."

"Okay." Serena nods, and they do not move from where they're sitting. "For a minute."

***

She flounces through the door of her cabin twenty minutes later, gliding past five pairs of wide, inquisitive eyes. She gets into her bunk, settles her sheets around her and combs her fingers casually through her hair.

"Serena?" Angelique asks anxiously in her French accent.

"Hm?"

"What happened?" Virginia St. Clair demands impatiently.

"Oh!" Serena flops back, smiling blissfully at the ceiling. "He's my boyfriend," she says, infinitely careless, like it's no big deal at all.

Her friends squeal anyway, just like she knew they would.

***

Their first kiss happens in the evening, by the lake. They're playing jacks and Serena's kicking butt and taking names, though she has the slightest suspicion that Aaron might be letting her win.

Upping the stakes, she suggests, "If I win you have to kiss me."

He laughs, a shy, boyish sound. "I could kiss you anyway," he mumbles.

She beams and pushes the jacks aside so that nothing lies between them. "Okay. Kiss me anyway."

He looks at her for a second, eyes focused on her mouth, and then abruptly he leans over and kisses her. It's sloppy, because Serena giggles a bit and then their noses bump, and when he sits back his face is kind of red.

"Serena, can I ask you something?"

She licks her lips. He tastes like the blueberry ice cream they had for dessert. "Uh-huh."

Aaron glances away, mutters, "Never mind."

***

For three entire weeks, they are inseparable. They're partners for every game, they sit at the same table for every meal, and they spent their free time telling jokes and laughing together.

She likes the silly things he says and the pretty pictures he draws and his warm brown eyes. He makes her feel happy and giggly. He knows her favourite camp song and story, the one about Cecil the Caterpillar, by heart, and when he acts it out she laughs and laughs and laughs. He always laughs, too, when she laughs.

Once, she remembers that summer will eventually end and he'll have to go home and she'll have to go home, and that those are two different places, but then she resolves not to think about it anymore.

***

"S?" Eric asks her anxiously one day at dinner. His nose is sunburned and she thinks that makes him look especially adorable.

"Yeah, E?"

"Do you think Blair will be mad at you?"

Serena feels her eyes widen as she abandons her mission to get as many sprinkles as possible onto her banana split and dedicates her full attention to Eric. "Why would that happen?"

"Cause you got a new best friend." He sounds anxious but his eyes are fixed on her banana split.

She sighs dramatically and shoves the bowl toward him. "You can have _half_."

"Thanks!" He digs in and says around his mouthful, "What about Blair?"

"She won't be mad." Serena smiles. "She's my best friend. Aaron's my _boyfriend_."

Eric considers this. "Which one's more important?"

Serena opens her mouth to answer and then snaps it closed again. She honestly doesn't know. She and Blair are best friends forever, but you can also have a boyfriend forever, except then you technically call him your husband. "Um. I think...they're equal. They're equal important."

"And what about me?"

She laughs, presses a napkin to his chin where ice cream is starting to dribble downward. "You are most important."

***

"Hey, Serena?" He runs up to her on one particularly sunny afternoon in just his swim trunks, wet hair dripping into his face.

"Hi," she says happily from underneath her sunhat. She's settled in the grass, building a castle out of playing cards, and she has to tilt her head way back to see his face.

He drops down onto the ground next to her, and Serena thinks fleetingly that the grass will stick to his wet legs. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Mm-hm."

"Um." He reaches for her hand, and she stops working on her castle then, stays still and lets him hold her fingers in his. "Will you marry me?"

Her cheeks flare with heat, and he's squeezing her hand so hard it almost hurts. She bites back her laughter and looks into his nervous eyes contemplatively.

"Will you help me finish my castle first?"

Aaron grins brightly. "Yes."

She nods very seriously and gives her own answer, "Yes."

***

Their wedding is an elaborate affair. Serena wears her nicest sundress, the pale yellow one with the white flowers printed on it. Aaron puts on his dress pants, because every rich kid's nanny packs a pair of those even for summer camp, and Viriginia St. Clair puts a pretty braid into Serena's hair. She gets Eric to be her bridesmaid, even though he protests at length that it's a _girl's_ _job_.

"I'm not gonna make you wear a _dress_, E," she sighs. "But Blair's not here so you have to do it."

"But - "

"_Please_," Serena pleads, drawing out the word and sticking her bottom lip out.

Eric huffs, but he relents at last, agreeing to wear his nicest shorts (or, more realistically, the one with the fewest grass stains).

They don't plan the more serious things, like vows and the guest list, so by the time they've finally sorted themselves out and gathered up their friends and have picked out one of the nicer spots by the lake, the sun is already slowly sinking from the sky.

Aaron promises to tell her the story of Cecil the Caterpillar whenever she wants, and Serena promises playfully to always beat him at soccer.

"I think you're awesome," he tells her. "And really pretty."

She beams. "I think you're those things, too."

"Boys aren't pretty," he chuckles, even though he sounds a little insulted.

"Handsome, then," she corrects herself, bouncing on the balls of her feet, and he gives her that grin that she loves as a reward.

They exchange rings made out of licorice and then she leans forward and kisses him for a full three-Mississippi counts.

***

They sneak out past curfew the night of their wedding and run over the grass in their barefeet. They wade into the lake, gripping each other's hands tightly, and try not to laugh too hard as they try to jump over the small waves.

Somewhere around midnight, tired and giddy, Serena gets hungry and takes a bite out of her ring.

"Hey!" Aaron's voice is sharp and his eyes are all hurt.

"What? It's licorice."

"But it's your _wedding ring_." He looks at her sadly. "And you _ate_ it. You _broke_ it."

She shrugs, offers, "Sorry," in a very small voice.

Aaron lets go of her hand. "I want a divorce."

***

Serena cries into her pillow that night and eats the rest of her ring.

***

She doesn't tell anyone about their divorce, and to his credit, neither does Aaron.

***

They leave for home five days later, and Serena makes sure not to look at Aaron while she stands in front of her cabin for her bags, waiting for her nanny of the moment to come and pick her up.

"Are you sad?" Eric asks, sitting on his suitcase.

She gives him half a smile. "No, E," she promises, ruffling his hair. She rummages through her cloth bag and pulls out her sunglasses with the star-shaped frames that she neglected wearing all summer. She slips them on and crosses her arms, murmurs, "It wouldn't have worked anyway. You know. With the distance and everything."

***

She doesn't see Aaron again until she's seventeen. They attempt a relationship once again, and it's licorice and Cecil and Caterpillar like they're a decade younger, and he asks her to go to Buenos Aires with him and maybe one day he could love her.

But she knows, halfway to South America, that she was right all those years ago.

They're not meant to be. Her heart's never really been his.

Even if she still likes the way he smiles at her.

***

The second time around, she keeps her licorice ring.


End file.
